science fiction Archives - Page 7 of 9

The Testament of Andros — James Blish

Published on June 17, 2008

Cover of The Testament of Andros

The Testament of Andros
James Blish
216 pages
published in 1973

James Blish was a science fiction writer of the same generation as Isaac Asimov, the first science fiction writers to have grown up with science fiction as a separate genre, to have become science fiction fans before they became science fiction writers. Blish’s first short stories were written in the early forties, before World War II interfered, so it was only in the fifties that he made his reputation. During that decade he wrote quite a few classic short stories and novels, including the Cities in Flight series, with its vision of New York flying off amongst the stars and A Case of Conscience, in which a young Jesuit wrestles with the question whether or not the aliens he lives amongst posses souls. At the same time, writing under the pseudonym of William Atheling, Jr., he was one of the pioneers in applying literary criticism to science fiction. His later work is less interesting, being spend mostly on writing Star Trek novels.

Though Blish is an important early science fiction writer, one who has written several excellent novels and short stories, I’ve always found myself a bit lukewarm about him. I’ve read the novels I’ve mentioned above, attempted some other, later works of his, as well as most of his better known short stories; they were alright, but no more than that. Part of the trouble I had with him is that he, for a science fiction writer, had quite a conservative pessimistic atttitute towards the future, adhering to a Spenglerian, cyclical view of history, most notably in the Cities in Flight series. I got nothing against a bit of conservatism or pesssimism in my science fiction perse, even if I don’t share it, but Blish’s philosophy is a particularly dreary one.

Template — Matt Hughes

Published on May 5, 2008

Cover of Template

Template
Matt Hughes
400 pages (in manuscript)
published in 2008

It was James Nicoll who suggested to hold a Matt Hughes reviewathon of his latest novel Template, since Hughes was kind enough to offer an advance copy to any reviewer or blogger who was willing to do something with it. James wanted a reviewathon because he found it “tremendously annoying that Hughes is not better known than he is”. I figured it would be an easy way to sample a writer I knew of but had not yet read so this week I found myself reading my first Matt Hughes
novel.

Had it not been for James and his reviewathon I don’t think I would’ve read this novel, as the plot description didn’t sound that interesting. Conn Labro is an indentured duelist on Thrais, one of the Ten Thousand Worlds, happily fighting all kind of duels and games for his employer, making them lots of money while never quite paying off his indenture, though he is now one of the top ranked duelists in all the Ten Thousand Worlds. He was indentured as an infant you see, so has a lot of indenture to work off. But all this changes when Hallis Tharp died. Tharp’s an old man, the closest thing to a friend Conn has, who has been coming to Conn every week for most of his life to play a game of paduay. Conn sets
out to see what happened to Tharp when he doesn’t show up for his game, discovers he’s died and he has inherited what’s left of his meager possesions, only to see his employer’s game house blown up before his eyes when returning home. It then turns out he’s inherited a bearers deed to some offworld possesion and after he and Jenore Mordene, another friend of Tharp are attacked again, Conn sets off with her to find his destiny elsewhere in the Ten Thousand Worlds.

Worlds of the Imperium – Keith Laumer

Published on April 28, 2008

Cover of Worlds of the Imperium

Worlds of the Imperium
Keith Laumer
124 pages
published in 1962

As I’ve said before, Keith Laumer was one of my favourites when I first started reading science fiction. I would never accuse him of being a particularly brilliant writer, but he has a knack for writing gripping, fast-paced adventure science fiction. Laumer writes in a sort of polished pulp style, with loner heros relying on their native brawn and brain to solve the predicaments their superscience weapons cannot help them with. There’s a hint of sex, though nothing beyond noticing the graceful curves of a passing female. The best mainstream author I could compare Laumer to would be John D. MacDonald.

Worlds of the Imperium is a good example of Laumer’s style. It’s the first in a series of three novels starring Brion Bayard, secret agent of an British-German-Swedish empire that spans several dozen parallel earths, a much more benign empire than that imagined by H. Beam Piper. The other two novels are The Other Side of Time and Assignment in Eternity and all three of them have been published in a omnibus edition by Baen Books. A fourth novel, Zone Yellow was written long after Laumer had had the stroke that robbed him of his writing abilities and by all reports is … not good.

The Hidden Family – Charlie Stross

Published on April 8, 2008

Cover of The Hidden Family

The Hidden Family
Charlie Stross
309 pages
published in 2005

The Merchant Princes series is Charlie’s attempt at writing a fat fantasy series. Unfortunately, the rules changed shortly after he had written the first book in the series, with bookstores no longer wanting fat fantasies. Hence what should’ve been the first book was split in two, The Family Trade and The Hidden Family each hastily rewritten to stand on their own. This wasn’t entirely succesful, especially in the first book; the best way to read these two novels is back to back and pretend it’s still one novel. As it is, you have The Family Trade setting up some plot threads which are only resolved in The Hidden Family; read them on their own and you only have half a novel. A pity, but nothing to be done about that.

In The Family Trade we met Miriam Bernstein, journalistic investigator for a IT/biotech trade journal, who stumbled on something far greater than the already impressive whitewashing operation she tought she had uncovered. She’s fired, her house is broken into and she’s almost kidnapped, but then she discovers she can transport herself to a parallel world. It turns out she’s a lost member of a family of worldwalkers, who were also behind that whitewashing operation that got her into trouble in the first place. Though she’s understandably reluctant to do so, Miriam slowly accepts her new family and her own role in keeping the family business –smuggling drugs absolutely undetectably into the United States by running it through their homeworld to make money to buy medcines and luxury goods not available there and selling those to the nobility– afloat. Once she does, she sees some opportunities for drastically modernising the family; The Hidden Family takes up the rest of the story.

Slaughterhouse-Five – Kurt Vonnegut

Published on March 17, 2008

Cover of Slaughterhouse-Five

Slaughterhouse-Five
Kurt Vonnegut
215 pages
published in 1969

Back in the days when I read every book in the local library which had that little squiggle on it that meant it was science fiction, I read and reread a hell of a lot of Vonnegut. Books like Breakfast for Champions,God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater, Slapstick and of course Slaughterhouse-Five. At the time I read them without any consideration of their literary status, but simply because Vonnegut was a science fiction author and I read science fiction, even if much of the Vonnegut novels I read weren’t quite science fiction. I liked them for their cynical black humour and inventive, seemingly slapdash plots.

Rereading Slaughterhouse-Five some twenty years later it’s easy to see why it made such an impression as a work of literature and why it’s so popular with generations of English students. It’s chock full of the sort of symbolism that makes it an easy book to dissect in a student essay. However, that also makes it hard to write about now, almost forty years after its first publication, because so much has been written about it already. I don’t want to write a review that comes over as yet another student paper.